Opening valuable Hot Wheels with the guy who creates Hot Wheels card art is a new guilty pleasure…

If you were following the Lamley Facebook feed last weekend from the Hot Wheels Convention, you might have watched the DLM video we posted. A few of us got together and opened the convention models and few other notables.

And as fun as it was, what made it the highlight of the weekend was the group that joined me. My good friend @hw_jay was there, as was Hot Wheels Marketing Manager Jimmy Liu (@toy.inc). The other two attendees were notable because their livelihoods depend on packaged Hot Wheels, and we demanded they destroy those very objects.

The first was Lorie from Sterling Protectors, a Lamley Partner who has created what I think is the best diecast protector there is. We used Sterling for the JCCS Matchbox Skyline giveaway, and Lorie was there to introduce collectors to the new product. You can find them on Amazon, and I highly suggest you get a few to try out (use “Lamley05” on checkout for a discount):

The other person dragged into the mayhem was Julian Koiles, who works at Mattel. You may not know his name, but you sure as shit know his work. Let me refresh your memory:

Don’t look at the models, look at the art. Julian is responsible for ALL the Car Culture card art, as well as the Forza and Gran Turismo sets. As I say in the video, I am somewhat mad at Julian because he is making these models harder and harder to open. The Hot Wheels premium art has been the best packaging art Hot Wheels has ever done. By a mile.

So as you can imagine, Julian loves packaging, and as he tells us, hasn’t opened a model in years. Until we made him do it. And after a timid first run, his second attempt was a confident DLM. Funny enough, the next day he was asked to open the Finale Car on stage during the Mattel presentation. A new tradition has been born.